Leaders of KDHX rejected an offer from a group of former volunteers to contribute $100,000 to the financially imperiled community radio station as well as a promise to collect an additional $100,000 in pledged donations.
Activist group Love of KDHX submitted the proposal to station managers privately, days after KDHX stopped live broadcasts and terminated almost all of the organization’s remaining volunteers, thereby stripping them of voting rights over key station business.
The proposal called for an all-new board, a new structure for the station’s staff and creation of an advisory group that would include former Jazz St. Louis President and CEO Gene Dobbs Bradford and other arts leaders.
The radio station’s board declined to discuss the proposal, rejecting it in a Thursday night text message to Love of KDHX volunteer Roy Kasten after posting a public statement and unilaterally publishing the volunteers’ plan.
“This was a good faith gesture that we wanted to keep private while the board could review it and then we could discuss. And they just blew it up,” Kasten said.
In its statement, KDHX leaders said the plan is “not a serious document” and is “rooted in the kind of magical thinking that contributed to KDHX’s long-standing financial instability.” The statement blamed the station’s precarious financial status on past board members for failing to adequately fundraise after moving to its current home in Grand Center in 2013.
KDHX lawyer John M. Reynold said in court this month the organization is “two steps from bankruptcy” and cannot afford to pay its creditors. KDHX leaders are looking at selling the station’s assets, Reynold added.
Yet the contributions offer “doesn't begin to address the costs of necessary short-term repairs” and is “a non-starter,” KDHX leaders said in the statement.
“Instead of talking to us, they sandbag us by releasing it to the public and making this statement, which is full of inaccuracies and falsehoods and continues their pattern of blaming everyone and anyone, and refusing to accept any accountability,” Kasten said.
The 37-year-old community radio station had a $1.2 million annual budget as of fiscal 2023. Executive Director Kelly Wells received a $106,082 salary that year.
Some of the fired volunteers sought and received a court order to temporarily restore their organizational status. They were allowed to watch an annual meeting last week conducted on Zoom, during which Pierson allowed only himself and Vice President Paul Dever to speak.
Volunteers also voted electronically in a six-candidate race for a seat on the board. The candidates were Ray Finney, William Gelb, Laura Lock, Richard Mueller and Courtney Dowdall, who was appointed in September to fill a board term that expired this month, according to a ballot obtained by St. Louis Public Radio.
Votes were due Tuesday; KDHX hasn’t announced a winner as of early Friday.
